Taste of Family

Kindred can tell how closely they’re related to another vampire by tasting their blood (with all the hazards of addiction that entails). The blood of one clan tastes a little different than the blood of another; a discriminating undead palate can tell the blood of a Kindred “relative” from that of a more distantly related clan member.

When a Kindred tastes Vitae, the player can roll Intelligence + Occult Skill. Having active Heightened Senses (Auspex) grants a +2 dice bonus to the roll. One success is enough to tell whether the blood comes from the character’s own clan, or to recognize the blood as coming from his immediate Kindred “family” — that is, in the taster’s own line of sires and childer (see “Blood Ties,” above). Two successes enable the character to recognize the clan (assuming the character has tasted Vitae from several clans). Or two successes tell the character if the subject is within two generations of him in the line (that is, if the subject is a grandsire or grandchilde).

The character can also mystically recognize blood from his mortal relations, if he should happen to drink it without his knowledge, with one success on the Intelligence + Occult Skill roll.

Example: The Nosferatu Gregor tastes the Vitae of a Kindred whom he plans to diablerize. Gregor’s player obtains four successes on the Intelligence + Occult roll to determine if Gregor has any insight into the blood’s origins. With four successes, Gregor determines that the individual he’s about to diablerize is, in fact, his sire’s sire! If Gregor’s player had obtained only one success, Gregor would know only that this Kindred was closely related to him in the sequence of Embrace. If no such connection existed, one success would have confirmed that the other vampire was in fact a Nosferatu.